John Phillips: Will California back Jerry Brown again?

California's former lieutenant governor and current candidate for governor, Abel Maldonado, is betting the family's strawberry farm that the state's early release program for prisoners will be a complete and total disaster. Maldonado knows that Gov. Jerry Brown will have every possible advantage in his bid for re-election, but there's one thing Brown won't have – control over what dangerous offenders do once they're let out of prison.

In 2011, Gov. Brown signed Assembly Bill 109, in an effort to reduce the number of inmates in the state's 33 prisons to 137.5 percent of design capacity, as ordered by the courts. It was legislation he probably would have preferred not to have signed, but felt that his back was against the wall.

Politically, law and order issues have always been a thorn in the side of the Brown family.

In 1966, California voters dumped popular two-term Gov. Pat Brown in favor of Ronald Reagan, in part because of the Watts riots and the early anti-Vietnam War demonstrations at UC Berkeley.

In 1982, Golden State voters opted for Pete Wilson over then two-term Gov Jerry Brown for U.S. Senate. Voters had residual anger at Brown for appointing death penalty opponent Rose Bird as chief justice of the California Supreme Court.

And, in 1994, voters again preferred Wilson to a Brown; this time, Jerry's sister Kathleen Brown was on the short end of the stick. In the wake of a rising crime rate and the brutal murder of 12-year-old Polly Klaas of Petaluma, Brown, then the state treasurer, doubled down on her opposition to the death penalty and three-strikes legislation. Wilson defeated Brown by 15 points.

Jerry Brown is hoping history doesn't repeat itself. But at this point, hoping is all he can do because the toothpaste is out of the tube.

We've already seen one AB109 proponent make international news for reoffending. Dustin James Kinnear is accused of stabbing a woman to death on the Hollywood Walk of Fame after she refused to give him $1 for taking his picture. Despite the fact that AB109 is only supposed to apply to nonviolent offenders, the Los Angeles Times reports that Kinnear had a history of mental health issues and had been arrested at least 46 times. Seven of those arrests were reportedly for assault with a deadly weapon.

Oops.

It's also not just prisoners released through AB109 that Brown has to worry about either. Judges up and down the state are caving into pressure from Washington and Sacramento to let offenders out of prison early.

Earlier this month Orange County Superior Court Judge Robert Fitzgerald approved the release of third-strike offender Robert Rudy Lozano over the objections of the O.C. District Attorney's office.

Lozano's criminal history goes back to the 1980s. In 1985, he was convicted of felony manslaughter for beating a man to death with a baseball bat during an argument. Since then he has been in and out of prison for various offenses, including drug use, forgery, burglary, receiving stolen property and violating parole.

This man is now living among us. Who's baking the casserole?

In May, Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Gilbert Brown rubber-stamped the release of Christopher Evans Hubbart, also over the objections of the Los Angeles District Attorney's office. Hubbart has admitted to raping 41 women in California from 1971-82 – more than half of which were committed in Los Angeles County. All indications are that Hubbart will move to Claremont, home to the Claremont Colleges and 6,300 students.

What could possibly go wrong?

Even with all of these liabilities, all bets are that Brown cruises to re-election. But there could be bumps in the road. Let's just hope those bumps aren't the bodies of innocent people.

Register opinion columnist John Phillips hosts a radio show on KABC/AM 790.